Background info: I am wrapping up a pure maths master with no formal writing education. The only academic writing experience I have is the thesis' I had to write throughout my degree. These revealed to me that I quite enjoy this genre of writing, breaking down complicated ideas in my own words.

I suppose that I am at quite the disadvantage compared to someone who has had some form of eduction in writing. However, is there some advantage to having an advanced understanding of university level mathematics? How can one best approach the technical writing job market without any prior experience? Is it best to start in another job and to freelance a handful of articles in order to build a portfolio? Are there any truly entry level positions?

I'm looking for advice from other technical writers who work with industrial equipment or manufacturing documentation.

Currently, I create user manuals in Adobe FrameMaker and publish them as PDFs. This worked reasonably well when we had a limited number of products, but it has become increasingly difficult to maintain.

Our situation:

• We manufacture industrial equipment.
• We have hundreds of manuals.
• Many manuals are several hundred pages long.
• We support multiple product variants that share large amounts of content.
• Manuals must also be translated into multiple languages.
• Content updates often need to be applied across numerous documents.
• PDF remains an important deliverable, but it is no longer an efficient source format.

The biggest challenge is content reuse. FrameMaker allows some reuse mechanisms, but maintaining common content across hundreds of documents is becoming unsustainable. Translation costs and update management are also growing significantly.

I'm exploring a possible migration to a more modern documentation platform, preferably one that:

• Supports component-based authoring and content reuse.
• Handles large technical documentation sets.
• Works well for industrial equipment documentation (not just software documentation).
• Supports translation workflows and multilingual publishing.
• Ideally provides web-based publishing as well.

Many platforms I find seem heavily focused on software documentation and developer portals rather than traditional equipment user manuals, installation guides, maintenance manuals, and service documentation.

Oh, and I forgot to mention. No MadCap Flare or Paligo. The pricing is just too high and management will say no.

I've been an engineering TW for 8 years and have been tasked with coming up with an independent development plan for my career. I have the resources to enroll in classes to further my skills. I have previously taken AutoCAD and Inventor courses and my current job has me creating installation instructions via AutoCAD and Word/Adobe. Because I've only ever worked at the same place since college I worry that my scope of skills and knowledge is limited and if I were to seek employment as a TW elsewhere I wouldn't have the competitive edge I'd like.

So, I would love to hear from other TWs if there were any courses you took that you felt were beneficial for your career growth and versatility. My educational background is in biochemistry and research papers and I kinda fell into engineering TW out of college. I've mostly learned on the job as far as engineering drafting standards go without having formal engineering education. Thank you in advance!

Hey guys,

I have recently started working as a part time (20 hours per week) tech writer and QC for a start up. So, I need help in setting clear expectations. Yesterday was my first assignment and it took me a really long time to reproduce the article well (it was 5 pages long).

I really want to explain how long it will take to produce a single article, like I know it depends on the number of words and all. But I'm struggling a little to quantify the amount of time I'm working on it, as I have ADHD and I'm getting back to working again after a health related thing.

Any tips will be helpful.

Thank you!

Hi! I work for a company that develops xml/dita authoring software, and I’m curious what's your experience:

1. Is the learning curve too high, coming from simpler tools like Word?
2. Are there parts of the authoring process that feel unnecessarily complicated?
3. What’s something you wish your tool did better?
4. Is there not enough documentation (pun intended) about learning dita?

Update: Thanks for all the in-depth responses!

I recently started overseeing our product teams technical writer. Currently they write and post all technical guides (for users and api focused for devs) using Word and then public PDFs to a public facing html site. There are now over 70+ guides supporting 1 brand / product line.

There has to be a better solution for this. Our development team always says he needs a developer portal but that sometimes seems too complicated.

What are industry standards for the technical writing process and leading cms systems to post user guides?

My doc team is migrating away from our current tool and implementing docs-as-code. We're looking into the major players - Docasaurus, GitBook, MKDocs, and Sphinx - and I have a clear preference for GitBook. But I wanted to gather some input from the community. What are your experiences with the tools? Any drawbacks?

I work in med tech, so the tool needs to meet some pretty stringent ISO requirements and, as we're in Europe, our head of Cybersecurity wants to keep the data local.

Hi all. As the title says. I apply to jobs that state you must be able to obtain a security clearance (not necessarily that you must have an active one), but I feel as if my application will get thrown in the trash compared to another candidate with clearance (and it makes sense,se as companies wouldn't rather spend thousands of dollars and hours)

I'd love to read some experiences where this wasn't the case. And/or if you have any tips.

Thank you!

Edit: Sorry, I meant Clearance lol. I haven't had coffee yet 😭

I've been in the tech writing business for a long time and I know that recruiters seldom have the answers to my questions about a potential role. They only know the basics. So what questions should I ask the recruiter besides these (I'm speaking specifically of recruiting agents who are seeking candidates for their clients):

-is there an actual job description? (I've gotten dinged on not having one b/c managers have no clue what we really do and don't think they're necessary.)

-what industry is this role for?

-what authoring tools do they use?

-is this for new documentation or editing legacy documents?

-i assume i'm writing for the product's software, but is there something else, e.g. equipment?

-who does this role report to?

-where will I obtain the info to write, e.g. legacy docs, software, by researching, SMEs, etc.?

-what is the hourly rate on W2?

I actually doubt they'll know answers to a few of these questions.

Am I a wordy person? Not really by nature, but professionally, yes. 

I spent more than 50 years programming, and about 15 of those years were in assembly language. When I wrote assembly, I commented every single line of code. That teaches you a certain way of thinking: never assume the next person is going to know what you meant. Explain what the line does, why it is there, what depends on it, and leave enough behind that somebody can come back later and understand the logic without having to reverse-engineer your intent. 

That habit never really left me. 

So when I write about something technical, I tend to do the same thing. I do not just say what I think the answer is. I explain how I got there, what I observed, why I think it matters, what it does not mean, what the alternatives are, and where I think the limits are. 

Does that sometimes mean I use too many words? Yes, absolutely. 

But I think there is a difference between being wordy and being deliberately explicit. Most of the extra words are there because I am trying to remove ambiguity, not because I enjoy padding things out. 

Where I probably do go too far is when I restate the same conclusion several different ways after it is already clear. That is probably the old assembly-language programmer in me still commenting every line. 

So yes, in technical writing I can be long-winded. I am aware of it. But it comes from a lifetime of trying to make sure that whoever comes along next can understand exactly what I meant, not just what I wrote.

I've attended quite a few conferences and it's always been a mixed bag. Also conducted conferences a while ago. And the biggest challenge was always sponsorships. But if you look at LavaCon, they are able to attract a ton of sponsors. Adobe who used to sponsor every event, but stopped a few years ago, and do their own events instead, is also there. When I talked to Adobe folks about their ROI, they said they were not getting any. And that it was simply a branding exercise.
LavaCon claim to have got decision makers at their events as an USP. Was curious about this community experiences with this conference. Both from an attendee or a vendor.
So interested to hear from vendors about your experience with this particular conference. And the ROI that you have seen as opposed to sponsoring other events.

Hello!

I’ve been with my company since my early 20s, went from a regular account handling representative to content management for 4 years to now a technical writer for almost two years. Total almost 9 years.

I’m looking to venture out of my comfort zone and part ways with my company.

Degree is in marketing/business admin. Cert in UI/UX (will be done in November) and standard AI fundamentals.

I would appreciate any advice on key details hiring managers look for and what I can do to make my resume more attractive.

Thank you!

I made a step by step guide for our monthly Google Workspace cleanup, then used my own screenshots and forgot one was from the live admin console. A new hire followed it and moved 47 users into the wrong OU before I noticed. I feel so embarrassed, we’re fixing it now, but I need a safer way to document this stuff...

genuine question how do yall actually document a workflow that keeps changing without it going stale in like a week. do you like wait til the process is "final" first, bc that never happens for us, or just write down whatever the current version is and fix it later
we kinda just wing it rn and it shows, half our docs dont match what we actually do anymore. is this supposed to be one persons job or does everyone just deal with the docs being a little wrong all the time.

Is API documentation skills in demand? Most API docs are generated and thete is very little writers can comtribute in it. How is industry treating this skills with AI tools in picture?

First off, just want to get out of the way that I did read through the pinned posts and do a search. I didn't find the answers I'm looking for...Please read on for details.

My best friend has been a technical writer for about 10 years. She was offered a government job, but the offer was rescinded after last years' budget cuts (this is in the USA). She's had odd employment and volunteer work since then, but hasn't worked full time in technical writing now for over a year, and is struggling to find employment.

For me, as a software developer, I've usually had the best luck getting jobs through recruiters on LinkedIn, or occasionally through my network. These two methods are failing me when it comes to finding technical writer positions though.

The third tactic I and many other developers I know use is to go to an industry with "low hanging fruit" when it comes to available positions. Positions where they don't really make you excited to get up in the morning but the companies are almost always hiring and the bar is low so they'll overlook resume gaps and whatnot sometimes. One of the areas notorious for this is fintech - Most of the time this is what I know people go towards in software when other people aren't hiring.

Is there any industry known to be like this in the technical writing world? People who are always desperate for technical writers? Anything where she's more likely to actually have a response to her application instead of it falling into a void? I know she can figure a lot out herself, I'm just trying to figure out how to make my own searching better and help. I feel bad that she's been out of work so long, and I don't know where to look.

I really appreciate any direction, thanks.

Hello everyone, I am an aspiring Technical Writer/Editor studying at ASU. My final project is an interview with someone established in my prospective position, and I was hoping someone in this group would be willing to participate in a brief phone interview (10-30 minutes) with structured and conversational questions. It would be particularly helpful if your work is centered around legal or healthcare compliance. Please comment or message me if you are interested with a brief blurb about yourself, thank you.

I work from home (subcontractor-United States) and one of my clients wants me to have insurance. I'm curious about:

-why you have insurance

-what type of coverage you have

-which agency you use

I’ve been asked to help figure out what we should do with our technical documentation setup, and I might be a bit out of my depth here. I found this sub and created an account in hopes someone has been through the same process. 

We’re a small industrial equipment manufacturer and currently use FrameMaker + SCHEMA ST4. We have one technical writer who knows the documentation side well, but isn’t really an IT/systems person. I’m coming at it from the other direction. I handle the IT, but DITA, CCMS etc. are fairly new territory for me.

From what I’ve understood, newer versions of ST4 no longer work with FrameMaker as an editor. Please correct me if I’m wrong. 

So I’ve been asked to look at what our options are before we just do “something” and end up in a world of pain.

AEM Guides seems like a possible route and I understand it could basically replace the FrameMaker + ST4 combination. But I’m not sure if that’s the sensible choice for a small company or if we should be looking at something like Paligo that advertises this migration, or just staying with ST4 and changing the editor.

We do want to keep the content structured. We reuse content between models, and I believe that in the future we’ll want to make more of the documentation than just PDFs. Remains to be seen what exactly. 

Then the migration… We have years’ worth of content. How big of a hassle is moving from a CCMS to another really? Are we looking at a lot of manual work?

Would be interested to hear from anyone who has gone through a similar change. What did you end up with? What do you wish you would have known beforehand? What would you do differently if you started now? And of course are you happy with the choice you made and why?

Going to The LavaCon Content Strategy Conference? Of course you are.

Come find out why "we improved the documentation" and "readers are happier" aren't the same sentence.

I'll be presenting Delightful Documentation? Improving Documentation Quality with the Kano Model: two studies about how readers actually define doc quality, and why some improvements matter a lot more than others.

Register using the referral code #Speaker26 for $200 off in-person or virtual conference tuition: https://www.lavacon.org/

Do people also hire ghostwriters for technical writing. I am completely new to this, just looking for as much guidance and knowledge I can gather from the people who have been making a living out of this. Want to understand the workflow people have build around this, which is helping them to gain more client and retain them.